a compilation of information about feltmaking and related activities both past and present and reflections on my reenactment experience in the 16th century.
If you have any information that will add to and complement or even contradict what I have here then feel free to contribute. Many thanks to those of you who have helped me get thus far.

Good Wife Joan

1588 (2008)

About Me

The hard working wife of Master Pinchbeck. Sadly the master craftsman has lost his sight and his family have come down in the world. To save them from ruin his Good Wife has had to take the reins and run the hatting business (with his advice of course). No longer do they have a fine workshop in London but they spend their time travelling from place to place plying their trade and turning their hand to whatever they can do to earn a few coins.
Fortunately the wealthy Tudor folk have a fancy for fine headwear!
God fearing, kind hearted Good Wife Joan often takes pity on other women who are also down on their luck and so unusually for the times provides occasional employment for widows, deserted or otherwise destitute women to work alongside her and her family to help them get by.

Hatters bow - close up of one end

Hatters Bow - close up of other end

Sunday, 25 April 2010

Further to my last posting "Lucy the Tudor" has kindly given me more information about the use if carders. Its a nuisance that I can't directly cut and paste directly into the blog so, if the following links don't work, its because I haven't typed them out correctly, let me know.

Here are some links which evidence the existance and use of hand carders. This is in addition to wool combs/ hackles and possibly other methods. I am keen to know what and how they are doing in the last painting!

Thursday, 22 April 2010

Having been given a roasting by a lady whose "hackles" were up after visiting Kentwell to find a gaggle of girls half heartedy using modern carders to prepare wool. She was adament that these carders would not have been available (feel free to tell me differently) but that wool would have been prepared using "hackles". I followed her lead to find out more about hackles and how to use them. If you want to do the same, do a search on u-tube there are various videos of people using a variety of different hackles and wool combs (which look similar to hackles - just a bit smaller).

In the course of all this I came across a one video which I beleive may give an amazing insight into how wool might have been prepared and used in tudor times. Its called "what people do with wool in a rural part of Serbia" - do have a look, its amazing. They use their fingers and/ or hackles to prepare the wool; they spin in a variety of different ways; they appear to put a woollen garment into a fire; the immerse garments in water and beat them with a paddle. The paddle is just like those shown in a picture of washerwomen in tudor times (which I now cannot find). Do have a look at this video, once you get through the evocative music at the beginning it is absolutely fascinating.

OK not wool but wiki describes the use of hackles with flax; "in this process the fibre is pulled through various different sized hackles. A hackle is a bed on nails, sharp; long; polished steel pins drivne into wooden blocks at regular spacing. A good progression is from 12 pins per square inch; to 12; to 25; to 48; to 80. The first three will remove the straw and the last two will split and polish the fibres. Someof the finer stuff that comes off the last hackles can be carded like wool."

Friday, 16 April 2010

Well, I spent most of monday optimistically carding a whole ryland fleece. I tried to felt it today and was very fed up. Although lovely and soft I don't think Ryland is a wool for felting. It barely hung together. It is probably lovely to spin and knit which is, after all, what was said in the reference refered to beforehand.